Rising civilian death toll as RSF attacks West Kordofan base

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) launched an offensive on the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) 22nd Infantry Division headquarters in Babanousa, West Kordofan, yesterday, after three days of fierce clashes in the town. Clashes continued in the capital, Khartoum. A new outbreak of fighting is reported from El Fasher, North Darfur.

Yesterday evening, Sudan’s Emergency Lawyers group reported that more than 23 civilians were killed, and 30 injured, due to clashes in Babanousa over the past three days. Six civilians were reportedly detained, and scores of residents were displaced as they fled to safer areas.  

Until Tuesday evening, there were conflicting reports shared by SAF and RSF loyalists on social media about the fate of the 22nd Infantry Division in Babanousa.

According to independent platform Sudan War Monitor, the RSF currently controls large parts of Babanousa “including the locality headquarters, the police station, and parts of the market”.

‘Complete destruction’

On January 14, leader of the Misseriya tribe, Emir Mukhtar Babu, and 22 Misseriya leaders, sent a letter to RSF commander, Lt Gen Mohamed ‘Hemedti’ Dagalo, declaring their rejection of escalating the war to their areas of influence in West Kordofan.

They asserted that should the SAF 22nd Infantry Division in Babanousa fall to the RSF, it would entail the complete destruction of the area’s oilfields. “This will result in risks of environmental pollution of water, plants, and land, as happened after the bombing of the airport and the Balila oilfield,” the letter stated.

West Kordofan is considered Sudan’s number one oil state as it includes most of the country’s producing oil fields such as Heglig, Difra, Kanar, Neem, El Barasaya, and Balila.

In late October 2023, the RSF launched an attack on the Balila oilfield, as well as the Balila Airport in West Kordofan. During the attack, “the RSF destroyed a brigade, massacred prisoners of war, and killed the [22nd] division’s deputy commander Brig Gen Khaled El Fadil”, severely weakening the SAF division, according to Sudan War Monitor.

The following month, civil efforts to mediate between the RSF and the SAF 22nd Infantry Division in Babanousa to prevent confrontations resulted in a ‘tripartite truce’, which was broken a day later.

Khartoum

In southern Khartoum, two people were killed after several shells hit El Nahda (formerly Ingaz) neighbourhood yesterday morning.

Accounts indicate that the RSF targeted a number of army bases yesterday at dawn, including the SAF General Command in the centre of Khartoum, El Shajara military complex in the southwest of the city, and the Signal Corps in Khartoum North.

Violent explosions were heard in the vicinity of the General Command and near the Republican Palace in central Khartoum.

Simultaneously, the SAF reportedly launched drone attacks on RSF bases in Burri, El Ta’if, El Ma’amoura, and Arkaweet in Khartoum.

El Fasher

El Fasher Resistance Committees, in the North Darfur capital, said that four people were injured yesterday morning, as a result of SAF-RSF clashes in Mellit gate in the north of El Fasher, and near the Abu Shouk and Abuja camps for the displaced.

Residents of the Naivasha camp near Tawila, North Darfur, told Radio Dabanga that shelling in the vicinity of the camp “continued for two hours and completely paralysed civilian movement in the area”.

El Fasher had witnessed a relative calm over the past two weeks, before clashes renewed this morning.

In December 2023, fierce fighting between the SAF and the RSF erupted in the northern parts of El Fasher, killing two people in the Abu Shouk camp.

As reported by Radio Dabanga last week, an airstrike on El Zurug, North Darfur, an area controlled by the RSF, claimed the lives of 12 people.